A known vehicle body front structure includes a dashboard lower member and a dashboard upper member which separate a passenger compartment and an engine compartment. This type of vehicle body front structure is designed taking account of characteristics of a vehicle body design to provide satisfactory rigidity. Such a structure has a dashboard upper side member extending over a dashboard upper member (see, e.g., Patent Literature 1 below).
In a vehicle body front structure disclosed in Patent Literature 1, a passenger compartment is separated from an engine compartment by a dashboard upper member. Disposed on a side of the dashboard upper member is a front pillar. Upper members extend from the front pillars and define drainage channels. A dashboard upper side member extends over the drainage channels of the upper member.
When the upper member is subjected to a load from the front side of the vehicle body, the dashboard upper side member cannot sufficiently transmit such a load to the front pillar because the dashboard upper side member does not interconnect the upper member and the front pillar.
In general, a dashboard upper member has opposing end portions providing a complicated structure because a hood hinge, a wiper and components increasing rigidity of a vehicle body are disposed on the end portions of the dashboard upper member. For example, a hinge base to which is attached the hood hinge is provided separately from a side member increasing strength of the vehicle body. In this case, no component other than the side member is connected to the front pillar. In other words, since the hinge base is separate from the side member, a collision load transmitted from a front face of a vehicle to the upper member can be transmitted to the front pillar through the side member alone. As a result, the collision load cannot efficiently be transmitted from the upper members to the front pillars.